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Benefits |
Preparation |
Medicinal Uses |
Side Effects |
Plant |
Folklore |
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| Common Names |
| Lemon Balm , Melissa |
| Botanical Name |
| Melissa officinalis |
| Family |
| LAMIACEAE or LABIATAE Mint Family |
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Herbalists refer to the plant as lemon balm, aromatherapists refer to the essential oil as melissa, both refer to the same plant. Melissa officinalis.
Lemon balm is an aromatic mint with a long reputation for having calming properties. Melissa is used for nervous heart, depression, restlessness, excitement, headache and insomnia. Melissa (lemon balm) appears to be so unsurpassed in treatment of herpes, it is so effective that the active ingredient has been isolated and is sold in Germany in an anti herpes preparation called Lomaherpan... |
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Prep Methods :Essential oil, herb infusions, tincture
 Remedies using Lemon Balm
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 Pale yellow oil with a light, fresh lemony aroma, powerful and soothing, Melissa's exorbitant price is due to the fact that it takes up to 7 tons of the plant to extract 1 pound of essential oil |
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Calming *Mood Uplfting *sleep *Stress Relief * |
 For cold sores, if you can't find a lemon balm cream, apply the tea, or used tea bags directly to the lesion. | | Because it's a mild sedative, lemon balm may help you sleep if the pain of a herpes outbreak is keeping you awake
| | When used in infusion, however, lemon balm is best used fresh or freeze-dried because the volatile oils in the leaves tend to disappear during the drying process. |
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| Herpes, Mumps | | The tannins and other pytochemicals in lemon balm extracts deter certain viruses, notably those that cause mumps and herpes. 406
(Duke, James A, Ph.D. ) | | Mild depression | | Lemon balm herb and melissa oil are recommended for nervousness, depression, insomnia, and nervous headaches. The volatile oils in the plant (particularly citronellal) have a sedative effect even in minute concentrations. 1032
(Mabry, Richard p68) | | Period pain | | An important medicinal use of lemon balm is to promote menstrual periods and ease period pain. 1307
(Mabry, Richard p68) | | Colds and Flu | | Hot infusions of lemon balm are sweat inducing, useful for treating colds and flu. 1308
(Mabry, Richard p68) |
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| Side Effects: |
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| None reported, lemon balm is considered a very safe herb. Use the usual care with the essential oil, because of the high cost, this oil is often adulterated with lemongrass and citronella oils. |
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Koehler's Medicinal-Plants 1887
 Lemon balm prefers the warmer climates and is widely grown in the Mediterranean and France and also grows well over much of the eastern and central US. The essential oil, melissa, is extracted from the leaves and small yellow-white flowers. This lemon-scented plant is 1 to 2 1/2 feet high, its covered with fine hair, and has a rather stout, erect, or much-branched stem. The round-toothed, egg-shaped or heart-shaped leaves are from 1 to 2 1/2 inches long and arranged opposite one another on the stem. From June to August the white or cream-colored tube-shaped flowers up to two-thirds of an inch long appear, several to a cluster, in the axils of the leaves. Sievers, A.F. 1930.The Herb Hunters Guide.Misc. Publ. No. 77. USDA, Washington DC
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 The ancients called Melissa Balm Melisphyllon, which means honey leaf. Avicenna described it's properties as cheering and other Arab physicians believed it important for easing melancholy and heart problems. Melissa was the main ingredient in Carmelite water, distilled by monks in Paris from 1611 and is often used in France as a digestive and antispasmodic.
(Walji, H.,112) |
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 It is an herb of Jupiter, and under Cancer, and strengthens nature much in all its actions. Let a syrup made of the juice of it and sugar (as you shall be taught at the latter end of this book) be kept in every gentlewoman's house, to relieve the weak stomachs and sick bodies of their poor sickly neighbor. Nicholas Culpeper |
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Annies Remedys
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